the fallacy of “whataboutism.
WSJ, June 2017
In his interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin employed the tried-and-true tactic of “whataboutism.” When asked about Russia’s reported meddling in American elections, he changed the subject to U.S. interference abroad: “Put your finger anywhere on a map of the world, and everywhere you will hear complaints that American officials are interfering in internal election processes.”
As Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia, observed on Twitter, “Putin plays classic whataboutism card when asked about interference in US elections.”
“Whataboutism” is another name for the logical fallacy of “tu quoque” (Latin for “you also”), in which an accusation is met with a counter-accusation, pivoting away from the original criticism. The strategy has been a hallmark of Soviet and post-Soviet propaganda, and some commentators have accused President Donald Trump of mimicking Mr. Putin’s use of the technique. When former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Mr. Putin “a killer” in an interview in February, Mr. Trump responded, “We got a lot of killers—what, you think our country’s so innocent?”
The term was popularized by articles in 2007 and 2008 by Edward Lucas, senior editor at the Economist. Mr. Lucas, who served as the magazine’s Moscow bureau chief from 1998 to 2002, saw “whataboutism” as a typical Cold War style of argumentation, with “the Kremlin’s useful idiots” seeking to “match every Soviet crime with a real or imagined western one.”
But the roots of “whataboutism” actually go back to the decadeslong sectarian struggle between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
On Jan. 30, 1974, the Irish Times published a letter to the editor from Sean O’Conaill, a history teacher from the town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland. Mr. O’Conaill wrote of “the Whatabouts,” his name for “the people who answer every condemnation of the Provisional I.R.A. with an argument to prove the greater immorality of the ‘enemy.’ ”
Three days later, in the same newspaper, John Healy picked up the theme in his “Backbencher” column, citing Mr. O’Conaill’s letter. “We have a bellyful of Whataboutery in these killing days, and the one clear fact to emerge is that people, Orange and Green, are dying as a result of it,” he wrote.
Commentators on the Troubles embraced the term “whataboutery” and frequently mentioned it in the ensuing years of strife. The “whataboutism” variant appeared as early as 1993, in Tony Parker’s book “May the Lord in His Mercy Be Kind to Belfast”: “And I’d no time at all for ‘What aboutism’—you know, people who said ‘Yes, but what about what’s been done to us?’ ”
Reached by email, Mr. O’Conaill told me that he is surprised at how the “whatabout” idea has spread and mutated since his 1974 letter to the editor. “The phenomenon was waiting to be named, and others were soon observing it too, and naming it much the same way,” he said. As for the “whataboutism” of Messrs. Putin and Trump, he added, “I claim no responsibility whatever for their shenanigans.”
John Oliver (short)....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS82J...
In his interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin employed the tried-and-true tactic of “whataboutism.” When asked about Russia’s reported meddling in American elections, he changed the subject to U.S. interference abroad: “Put your finger anywhere on a map of the world, and everywhere you will hear complaints that American officials are interfering in internal election processes.”
As Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia, observed on Twitter, “Putin plays classic whataboutism card when asked about interference in US elections.”
“Whataboutism” is another name for the logical fallacy of “tu quoque” (Latin for “you also”), in which an accusation is met with a counter-accusation, pivoting away from the original criticism. The strategy has been a hallmark of Soviet and post-Soviet propaganda, and some commentators have accused President Donald Trump of mimicking Mr. Putin’s use of the technique. When former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Mr. Putin “a killer” in an interview in February, Mr. Trump responded, “We got a lot of killers—what, you think our country’s so innocent?”
The term was popularized by articles in 2007 and 2008 by Edward Lucas, senior editor at the Economist. Mr. Lucas, who served as the magazine’s Moscow bureau chief from 1998 to 2002, saw “whataboutism” as a typical Cold War style of argumentation, with “the Kremlin’s useful idiots” seeking to “match every Soviet crime with a real or imagined western one.”
But the roots of “whataboutism” actually go back to the decadeslong sectarian struggle between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
On Jan. 30, 1974, the Irish Times published a letter to the editor from Sean O’Conaill, a history teacher from the town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland. Mr. O’Conaill wrote of “the Whatabouts,” his name for “the people who answer every condemnation of the Provisional I.R.A. with an argument to prove the greater immorality of the ‘enemy.’ ”
Three days later, in the same newspaper, John Healy picked up the theme in his “Backbencher” column, citing Mr. O’Conaill’s letter. “We have a bellyful of Whataboutery in these killing days, and the one clear fact to emerge is that people, Orange and Green, are dying as a result of it,” he wrote.
Commentators on the Troubles embraced the term “whataboutery” and frequently mentioned it in the ensuing years of strife. The “whataboutism” variant appeared as early as 1993, in Tony Parker’s book “May the Lord in His Mercy Be Kind to Belfast”: “And I’d no time at all for ‘What aboutism’—you know, people who said ‘Yes, but what about what’s been done to us?’ ”
Reached by email, Mr. O’Conaill told me that he is surprised at how the “whatabout” idea has spread and mutated since his 1974 letter to the editor. “The phenomenon was waiting to be named, and others were soon observing it too, and naming it much the same way,” he said. As for the “whataboutism” of Messrs. Putin and Trump, he added, “I claim no responsibility whatever for their shenanigans.”
John Oliver (short)....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS82J...
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